Description

P1: Either boulder up to the pine ledge at 15', or if it's wet, walk around left. From the pine ledge, gain the right-facing corner, and make enjoyable moves to about halfway up it. Step left onto the face, then up and back towards the crack. Finish up the crack to the tree.

P2: The second pitch is also worth doing. A hardish move off the belay ledge leads up a shelved face to the overhang above. Traverse up and left to a fixed pin, then through the notch in overhang (crux) and up right until one can go up the face to the grand traverse ledge. Soft 5.8, but with thinnish pro on the (easy) face prior to the overhang.

Location

60 ft. right of the Dis-Mantel block,and behind a big tree; look for an obvious right-facing corner above a short overhang.

Protection

Standard rack - make sure you have small pieces or small nuts. The tree has a rap station at ~80ft.

A nice variation is to continue straight up after moving out of the corner to the obvious finger crack on nice white rock above. Surmount the overhang using the crack, then move right to the belay/rap tree. This is the top part of 'Stop the Presses, Mr. Williams!'

Actually Tim, that is the route Osteopath, which Swain described as a distinct line at 5.6, but DW considers a variation to STP. Climbed a la Swain, it is the easiest route to the pine tree. I think Raunchy with the 5.9 direct "variation" (it was a later addition to the route; a tree stump blocked a direct line back in the day, forcing the detour onto the left face) is a *** pitch.

For someone just starting to lead 5.8 at the gunks, i found the gear to be excellent , except for the slab at the bottom, which can be avoided. But climbs well with a good spotter. Do not let the p.g rating deter you from getting on this excellent route. Really great varied moves on beautiful clean rock. Did first pitch only.

Followed a friend on this to the top in one pitch. Second pitch had a fun 5.8 roof but involved some R-rated runout licheny face climbing right after the tree at the ledge. Book says 5.5 (and supposedly protects with ballnutz, though wasn't seeing where), but felt harder to me.

From the top we scrambled to climber's left along narrow ledge to the belay tree for Immaculate Virgin. 70m gets you into a gulley and you can just rap off the end into a little foot ledge in a cave and then step down to the ground.